Perhaps it was her husband who was the disillusionizing note as he stood on the polished floor of the sunflooded drawing-room.  Although bare of furniture, it was eloquent to Honora of a kind of taste not to be found at Quicksands:  it carried her back, by undiscernible channels of thought, to the impression which, in her childhood, the Hanbury mansion had always made.  Howard, in her present whimsical fancy, even seemed a little grotesque in such a setting.  His inevitable pink shirt and obviously prosperous clothes made discord there, and she knew in this moment that he was appraising the house from a commercial standpoint.  His comment confirmed her guess.

“If I were starting out to blow myself, or you, Honora,” he said, poking with his stick a marmouset of the carved stone mantel, “I’d get a little more for my money while I was about it.”

Honora did not reply.  She looked out of the window instead.

“See here, old man,” said Trixton Brent, “I’m not a real estate dealer or an architect, but if I were in your place I’d take that carriage and hustle over to Jerry Shorter’s as fast as I could and sign the lease.”

Howard looked at him in some surprise, as one who had learned that Trixton Brent’s opinions were usually worth listening to.  Characteristically, he did not like to display his ignorance.

“I know what you mean, Brent,” he replied, “and there may be something to the argument.  It gives an idea of conservativeness and prosperity.”

“You’ve made a bull’s-eye,” said Trixton Brent, succinctly.

“But—­but I’m not ready to begin on this scale,” objected Howard.

“Why,” cried Brent, with evident zest—­for he was a man who enjoyed sport in all its forms, even to baiting the husbands of his friends,—­“when I first set eyes on you, old fellow, I thought you knew a thing or two, and you’ve made a few turns since that confirmed the opinion.  But I’m beginning to perceive that you have limitations.  I could sit down here now, if there were any place to sit, and calculate how much living in this house would be worth to me in Wall Street.”

Honora, who had been listening uneasily, knew that a shrewder or more disturbing argument could not have been used on her husband; and it came from Trixton Brent—­to Howard at least—­ex cathedra.  She was filled with a sense of shame, which was due not solely to the fact that she was a little conscience-stricken because of her innocent complicity, nor that her husband did not resent an obvious attempt of a high-handed man to browbeat him; but also to the feeling that the character of the discussion had in some strange way degraded the house itself.  Why was it that everything she touched seemed to become contaminated?

“There’s no use staying any longer,” she said.  “Howard doesn’t like it.”

“I didn’t say so,” he interrupted.  “There’s something about the place that grows on you.  If I felt I could afford it—­”